Airtable automation actions: Salesforce

Learn how to use Airtable’s Salesforce automation actions to seamlessly create or update Salesforce records directly from an Airtable base. Marketers typically use this to hand over contact or opportunity information to sales reps using Salesforce. As a prerequisite, you will need to have an existing Salesforce account and “Record Type” configured in Salesforce.

Setting up an automation to create or update records in Salesforce

1. To start creating an automation, from the open base of your choice click on Automations in the upper left corner of your screen to open the automation configuration window.

2. Click the + Create automation option to begin the setup process. If you would like, you can rename the automation right away to make it easier to understand what it does.

3. Next, you will need to click + Add trigger option. Once clicked, the available triggers will be displayed for you to choose from. Click here to learn more about all available automation triggers. Once you have configured and tested the trigger, you can move on to the next step.

4. Next, you’ll choose a Salesforce action:

   1. Click the + Add advanced logic or action option.

   2. Scroll down in the menu that appears and find the “Salesforce” section.

   3. While hovering over that option, click either the Create record or Update record option.

5. Now, you’ll configure the Salesforce action you chose.

6. Under “Configuration,” click the dropdown below the “Salesforce account” section. From here, either select a previously connected account or connect a new account. More information on managing connected accounts is available here. After connecting an account, you’ll perform different options depending on the type of Salesforce action you chose to use in the automation:

   1. To create a Salesforce record, select the “Salesforce record type” you want to use by clicking the dropdown and clicking on the record type of your choice. There are different options available to configure for every Salesforce record type.

      1. Learn more about creating record types in Salesforce by consulting their documentation.

      2. If you choose a field to update but don’t fill it with a value, then that field will be cleared out in the related Salesforce record.

   2. To update an existing Salesforce record, you need to choose a trigger that will find records based on conditions you can set. We recommend using the “When a record matches conditions” trigger to setup matching criteria to identify records, but you can also use other available triggers depending on your needs. As an example, you may want the trigger to find records in the “Opportunity” table that have a status of “Qualification”.

      1. You will then be able to select the fields that you want to update by clicking the Choose field button under the “Update Fields” section.

      2. If you select a field but leave it blank, that field will be cleared out in Salesforce.

7. Finally, test and turn on the automation. Be sure to test all of the steps in the automation that you are building. Once every part of the automation has tested successfully, you’ll be ready to turn the automation on. Find the red colored “OFF” toggle and click it so the automation now appears as “ON” in green.

FAQs